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1893 Scarce Victorian Book - The Secret Commonwealth of Elves, Fauns & Fairies by Robert Kirk

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Original price $495 USD - Original price $495 USD
Original price
$495 USD
$495 USD - $495 USD
Current price $495 USD

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Author : KIRK, Robert. (Introduction - LANG, Andrew)
Title : The Secret Commonwealth of Elves, Fauns & Fairies; A Study in Folk-Lore & Psychical Research.
Publisher : London: David Nutt, 1893. First edition, limited to 550 copies. Bibliotheque de Carabas Vol. XII.
Language : Text in English
Size : 8 " X 5 "
Pages : lxv-92-2 pages
Binding : Very good original printed wraps (slightly worn and scuffed - as shown) under a protective removable mylar cover.
Content : Very good content (tight and clean). 
Illustrations : Including a nice frontis illustration.

Estimate: (USD 500 - USD 700)

The book : Scarce limited editon of this book - Folklorist Stewart Sanderson and mythologist Marina Warner call Kirk's collection of supernatural tales one of the most important and significant works on the subject of fairies and second sight. In the late 1680s, Kirk travelled to London to help publish one of the first translations of the Bible into Scottish Gaelic. Gentleman scientist Robert Boyle financed the publication of the Gaelic Bible and pursued inquiries into Kirk's reports of second sight. Kirk died before he was able to publish The Secret Commonwealth. Legends arose after Kirk's death saying he had been taken away to fairyland for revealing the secrets of the Good People. Scottish author Walter Scott first published Kirk's work on fairies more than a century later in 1815. Andrew Lang later gave it the popular title, The Secret Commonwealth of Elves, Fauns and Fairies (1893). Famous author Philip Pullman gave to his second book of his trilogy The Book of Dust the same title "The Secret Commonwealth" because he said that Kirk's book is one of his favourite books.

The author: Robert Kirk (9 December 1644 – 14 May 1692) was a minister, Gaelic scholar and folklorist, best known for The Secret Commonwealth, a treatise on fairy folklore, witchcraft, ghosts, and second sight, a type of extrasensory perception described as a phenomenon by the people of the Scottish Highlands.